Eric Proctor (D-Tulsa) calls for action to raise gross production taxes (GPT) on petroleum. He has long held for a negotiated compromise of 5% tax on all petroleum as it comes out of the well, but he says if the Republican legislative leaders refuse to act, then his political allies should begin an initiative petition drive to secure enough signatures to force the issue onto the next general election ballot, scheduled for November of 2018 (when a new governor is elected). Historically the GPT has been 7%, along with another tax on corporate profits annually. State officials justify the GPT as a form of business property tax and equate it to the property tax that a factory pays, along with the corporate income tax. Proctor is serving his final term in the House. State Auditor & gubernatorial candidate, Gary Jones, said that Republicans should rightly be concerned about the possibility of this tax question appearing on the ballot, next year. He says most other states charge 7%. Petroleum industry leader, Mike Cantrell, also calls on the legislature to hike the GPT rate back to where it was for much of the last century.

by Byron SchlomachGiven the list of over 500 school districts in Oklahoma, with 300 of them having fewer than 500 students, it is natural to conclude that a great deal of money could be saved with school district consolidation. After all, every district has to have a superintendent, a school board, and the administrative staff required for district processes.

​ Every district has its own procurement staff and procedures, contracting expenses, and transportation management systems as well. Surely, with consolidation a huge amount of needless duplication could be eliminated and expenses saved statewide.

The data, it turns out, do not support this intuitive conclusion.

​ The table shows that while there are lots of small districts and the 1-500 category spends more per student than any other size, these small districts, in total, spend a third as much as the 12 largest districts in the state. ​

​ This special session was called because of a crisis in mental health state funding. But instead of focusing on the needs of the ill, the legislature is adding more obstructions for the ill to overcome.

​ According to a report of the National Institutes of Health, there is a compounded crisis for the mentally ill who have already become addicted and now use nicotine products to self-medicate a serious mental illness. Here's their statement:

"Smokers who are diagnosed with mental health and/or non-nicotine substance abuse disorders are disproportionately affected by tobacco dependence. In North America, five to 10 percent of the population has a diagnosable mental illness. Yet, they carry almost half the burden of Canadian and US tobacco consumption, smoking approximately 40% of all cigarettes consumed."​

The mentally ill are far more likely to be victimized, than the population at-large.

​ Within the Republican majority, there are several fiscal conservatives who adamantly oppose the raising of any taxes unless and until there are significant reforms and cuts in wasteful agencies, including the governor's own office staffing. In conversations with several fiscal conservatives (both inside the Platform Caucus and other Republican conservatives) I was told that if we don't reform state agencies in this current crisis, then we never will. The money crunch is a result of waste and bad priorities. While the Platform Caucus unites on fiscal restraint, the group is even more united around social conservatism. I spoke with non-Platform-Caucus Republicans who also oppose the new tax schemes.We discussed the current issues of the session. They tell me that there could be 20 strong fiscal conservatives banding together to oppose any revenue bills until the urgent reforms get a hearing. Speaker McCall has locked up almost all reform bills in his Rules Committee. He wants to try tax hikes first. The reason why we are still waiting and still spending money on this extraordinary session, is partly because the reforms are being crated up in the mothballs of the Rules Committee, rather than given a chance to get a floor vote.

​

Rep. George Faught's 'anti swag' bill has some bipartisan support. Democrat Rep. Eric Proctor has offered to cosponsor the measure which failed to get a proper presentation in last May's JCAB. The Majority Floor Leader also supported in last May. But the $30 million reform initiative has no via path to a floor vote until the House leadership changes course and releases it from the Rules Committee.

Rep. Calvey has a way to move money away from school bureaucrats and provide teachers a $5000 pay raise with the savings, but it too, is locked in the Rules Committee.

A similar idea to Calvey's is a reform to adjust the average class size up by 2 students. It would free up another $5000 in annual teacher pay. Oklahoma currently spends more than California on per-pupil on teacher pay. But since our classes are so small, our teachers are barred from getting more pay.

Millionaire Oklahoma families are receiving millions in subsidized state college tuition, but no one seems to be ready to 'means-test' the nearly billion dollars that goes to the Higher Ed. Regents, rather than the struggling students of lower income families seeking to go to college.

There are still some bipartisan reform bills in the House, but perhaps those are seen as distractions, to the leadership, at least for now..

The Republican House leadership scrapped a vote on the controversial Tobacco tax bill, Wednesday. They appear to have even less support for the confiscatory revenue measure than last May. Under the tobacco tax bill's language, the effective state sales tax equivalent on any tobacco tax would be 55%. Imagine the boldness of a govt. which would lay claim to such piracy. If a gas station hiked the price of fuel Part of the unofficial structure of the state legislature is the party caucus. the Republicans & Democrats each have a caucus chairman whose duties include bringing together members of the party who identify with a common set of principles. But the House Republican Caucus is massive, and massively diverse on so many issues. There are several who have all but given up on the Republican Caucus to provide a worthwhile use of their time. Attendance appears to be falling off. When you add to that the potential for bullying, heckling, and scolding; some legislators say that they experience so much stress and discouragement that they have little enthusiasm for attendance at the Republican Caucus meetings. Of the 72 Republican House members, less than 60 are currently even remotely supportive of the new confiscatory tax.

"What is the likelihood of a back-bencher's bill getting out of the Oklahoma House Rules Committee?". -
​"That is correct, Tom; and you are today's Jeopardy champion!"

This week several of the nearly 100 House members filed 142 bills for the special session. As a whole, they are more thoughtful and serious than the nearly 800 bills that get filed in a January filing period. That's the good news.

The bad news is that 94 of these very thoughtful bills got locked up in Speaker McCall's hand-picked Rules Committee. McCall sent the members home, today. He said; "Don't come back until I have something for you to vote on.", or something to that effect. ​​

The daily Journal of Rep. Jon Echols is getting a lot of reading by Oklahomans. It's also getting a lot of diverse comments. One noteworthy reaction in Rep. Jon Echol's latest post comes from the longtime Ada, OK financier and oil production expert, Mike Cantrell. It's priceless and blunt. We're posting it for your review.

​The Double Chumping of Oklahoma

Big oil companies CEOs fly in in their corporate jets and their $5000 Armani suits and hold press conference after press conference boasting about getting 2000-6000 barrel per day wells. They talk about how the Stack and the Scoop are the best plays in America with the lowest break even cost ($24.40 per barrel) and some of the best production rates.

Then they sell the Oklahoma legislature that they're going to invest billions in taking more of a vital but finite Oklahoma resource at low oil prices ;but only if they get to keep a 2% tax rate.

Several of Oklahoma's lawmakers are making unprecedented efforts to become more accessible to the citizens. They are finding an added benefit of greater clarity and fuller context to what we sometimes see in the media outlets. A couple years ago I reached out to several lawmakers, asking them to consider the power of blogging as a tool of greater communication. Perhaps the best benefit is that you get to give full context to your decisions without the reporters taking you out of context.

​ Some lawmakers are directing their assistants to post press releases, newly filed bills, explanations of votes, and announcements of town hall meetings. We have created a section of our news outlet specifically for the lawmakers of the state to get their message out.​ Majority Floor Leader, Jon Echols, has been one of the lawmakers who utilizes social media very well. Here are a few of his recent posts. I hope the readers of Sooner Politics find it insightful.

Something 'Moore than Strange' happened in Alabama, tonight. Donald Trump was defeated by the very folks who still love his agenda. But the rock-solid base of evangelical conservatives showed they still call their own shots.​ Roy Moore is perhaps the most courageous conservative politician in America, today. He is the former Chief Justice of the state supreme court. He defied federal judges several years ago when he placed a monument to civil law in the lobby of the court. But it was a 'Ten Commandments' replica and the federal courts had him thrown off the courts for it.

He's back. He just defeated Trump's Washington machine, using Steve Bannon to orchestrate a US Senate runoff win against an incumbent opponent who spent ten times as much money. Moore led all night and ended up a 10 point winner. the general election is in a couple months. the winner assumes the seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when he accepted the position of US Attorney General.​ If you enjoy reading Steve Bannon's gloating, you'll love the articles in Breitbart, tonight!

In the quiet late night hours of last May, a special committee meet after dark, at the capitol. They listened to Rep. George Faught tell how trinkets, fluff, stickers, pens, bags, mugs, and other gift wares were being purchased by the governor's office and state agencies. None of it provided core services to anyone, except to help an incumbent retain elective or appointed office.​ In the past ten years Faught has seen enough of it. He decided that it has to stop. His bill went down in flames, gathering only 5 of the 26 votes on the Joint Committee on Appropriations & Budget. Not a single Democrat voted for the reform. They were too busy complaining about not getting a notice of the bill until that night.

But the bill (HB1094x) needs to be given a floor vote. Faught is on a mission to see the state cut this nonsense spending before he'll vote to take any more from our struggling families. His bill is short and the language is simple...

Calvey Reform Funds Pay Raises While Saving The State Millions.

Rep. Kevin Calvey (R-OKC) has discovered the key to restoring teacher salaries to competitive and sustainable norms.UPDATE: His new bill (HB 1002x) seeks to limit non-instructional staff from the current aggregate, to one per at least 18.3. Oklahoma currently pays teachers more per student than San Diego, Ca. (Read more on this) The Calvey bill does not call for larger class sizes, as some others have been suggesting. But San Diego pays their teachers $55K per year, compared to Oklahoma's $45K. Because San Diego has class sizes of 21.5 (average), they can pay more.

How'd We Get In This Mess?

​ It was the ill-conceived objective of the 1991 initiative known as House Bill 1017, which gave the OEA teachers' union a big windfall of new union members (teachers). Prior to that, most baby boomers will recall that class sizes were usually between 20 to 30 in a single classroom. In many ways California is not an ideal role model for Oklahoma. But San Diego pays $2500 per student in teacher pay. Oklahoma pays about 8% higher ($2700). If Calvey's proposal was taken even further, Oklahoma could pay teachers $10K more and still save the state over $100 million. It is done through eliminating the 20% (or maybe 25%) of the lowest performing teachers.

UPDATED On Monday morning the two legislative chambers will convene session for one reason; Mental Health go screwed over by a budget scheme.​ But the 144 who may show up will have a pile of papers on their desk. It seems that many of them decided this is the right time to fix the ills that got past the last session. Here's the Senate's list of new bills. The House will accept new filings on Monday morning. That will be especially rich reading.

To fix the budget crisis, the legislature will need to stay put until the governor has either signed or vetoed every engrossed act. They may need to deliberate a veto override. That means a session will take at least 10 days under the rosiest of scenarios. So any distraction will add govt. waste to the already dysfunctional process.​ This legislature grossly violated the state constitution. Then they forced the Attorney General's office to waste even more money defending the indefensible before the court. The state agencies are all in limbo over the incompetence. This in no way implicates each member of the legislature of incompetence, but it certainly applies to the leadership of both houses and the governor's administration.

"If you let the Democrats bring oil production taxes to a vote of the people, they may win the vote and swing some political races to their side."

I caught up with State Auditor, Gary Jones, tonight. He made the trip to Tulsa to attend the County Committee meeting and visit with Republican leaders in the Tulsa area. At the end of the meeting I had a few minutes with him and talked about the various tax hike initiatives being floated, including his own recommendation to consolidate tax rates for Gross Production Tax.​ Mr. Jones is convinced that the Democrat caucus is fully determined to push for a statewide vote on petroleum production tax increases. Jones says that the popular vote will not likely be sympathetic of the oil companies. When you add the 'coat-tail' effect of that initiative, it may make several legislative and statewide offices fall decidedly toward the Democrat camp. The Democrats want all oil production subjected to the 7% rate which has historically been the rate. Several years ago the Republican leadership decided to deeply cut the initial gross production tax as an incentive to get new wells drilled. With the horizontal drilling technology, drillers got to produce oil at the 1% rate for the first 3 years of a well's life. Then the rate hiked back up to 7% thereafter. Recently the legislature adjusted that discount rate to 2% for the first 3 years on new wells.

The Bridenstine congressional office is now in a strange twilight zone of self-imposed abstention from congressional voting. With key votes coming up on overhauling federal healthcare policy, income tax reforms, Budget & Debt authorization, and eminent war with North Korea; Bridenstine is following White House instructions to avoid a potential challenge of constitutional separation of powers.

The White House leadership has made Jim Bridenstine the official nominee for the NASA Administrative post. As such, he is a de-facto executive branch agency leader. He could eventually be asked to vote on funding matters which would give him inappropriate influence over his own new agency position. There is also a strong case to be made that Bridenstine has every right to exercise his congressional authority, but unless a vote comes down to a 1-vote margin, he is willing to oblige the White House request.

Bridenstine expects the Senate confirmation vote to take several weeks to materialize. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Florida) is one voice seeking to derail the Bridenstine nomination.

If the nomination becomes successful, Bridenstine will formally resign his Oklahoma Congressional office and notify the Governor of Oklahoma. If that notification is made in this calendar year, then a special election is required and would complete just prior to the mid-April filing date for the next congressional terms.

A man whom Oklahoma largely held in high esteem for 50 years, is finally ending his latest role in public office. David Boren is the former legislator, governor, US Senator, insider favorite for the '92 presidential nomination, and finally.... The 24 year president of Oklahoma University. It was his years at OU which saw his harshest criticism. Boren was never the radical leftist while serving in elective office. But at the university he was extremely controversial for his social leftist agenda. Former Rep. Paul Wesselhoft led a strong and successful effort to discredit Boren as essentially an art thief when Boren sought to keep valuable paintings which the university acquired. Some of that artwork was stolen from Jewish holocaust victims. Wesselhoft eventually won his battle and the whole Oklahoma legislature reprimanded Boren for keeping the stolen art. Boren, along with his father (Lyle) and his son (Dan), were all congressmen from Oklahoma. Boren defeated Gov. David Hall in 1974, and went on to defeat Jim Inhofe in the governor's race. Hall then went to prison.

​We recently moved our blog. Our archives are still partially stored at our old site.

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David Van Risseghem is the Publisher of SoonerPolitics.org. The resource is committed to informing & mobilizing conservative Oklahomans for civic reform. This endeavor seeks to utilize the efforts of all cooperative facets of the Conservative movement...

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David Van Risseghem is the Publisher of SoonerPolitics.org. It is committed to informing & mobilizing conservative Oklahomans for civic reform & restored liberty. We seeks to utilize the efforts of all cooperative facets of the Conservative movement...